


MOTHER 2: Three Boys And A Girl

by eightbulbasaurplushies



Category: Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound
Genre: Multi, Ness and Paula are very hetero, also poo and jeff are gay bffs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-10 02:19:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17417162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eightbulbasaurplushies/pseuds/eightbulbasaurplushies
Summary: A collection of retellings of different events in the story of MOTHER 2, known in America as Earthbound, that focus mainly on the friendship and bond between the chosen four.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Upon finding out that a novel detailing the events of Earthbound/Mother 2 exists, but is only available in japanese, I decided to start writing this. The story and characters are one of my most favorite things about the game, and I love reading, and I was disappointed when I found out the novel wasn’t translated after getting my hopes up about buying the book and getting to read a detailed version of the adventure with more personality in the main four characters. So, after some deliberation (because I thought it would be kind of lame, but I really wanted to, and it’s not as if I write any sort of fanfiction for anyone’s enjoyment but my own), I decided to do my own version of that! It won’t cover the entire game, but each chapter should describe an important event, and occasionally my own personal headcannon we-didn’t-see-this-happen-and-no-one-said-that-it-did-but-it’s-cute situations, as well as my personal characterizations of and headcannons for the chosen four. This is incredibly self indulgent, because this game is my hyperfixation at the moment and it’s helping me out in some rough situations, but, after all, it’s not like anyone pays me to do this or anything. But hopefully some of you will enjoy it as well! I know that there’s a severe lack of MOTHER content out there, especially written, so if there’s anyone out there loving the game like I am at the moment and is searching for the scraps that they can get, this is for you.

Swaddled warmly in the piles of blankets that covered his bed, chest rising with a slow and peaceful rhythm, a young boy, who had only just reached his tender teenage years recently, slept awfully soundly. He had always insisted on the blankets, though they were quite over the top, even in the summertime. After all, they could afford to let him blast the air conditioning overnight. He insisted, as well, that his mother tuck him into bed even still, despite the quiet embarrassment he would be to feel if someone had discovered that he were a teenaged boy that was still put to bed nightly by his mother. And he slept, ever so peacefully.

At the same time, something else was brewing, something much more sinister and a great deal less peaceful, stirring deep within the earth like a beast rising from slumber.

\---

Ness woke to his sister, Tracy, shaking his shoulder.  
He propped himself up by his elbows, still tangled in blankets, and realized dumbly that he was lying on the hardwood floor. He must have rolled off his bed without waking again.  
Rubbing his eye, he turned to Tracy, who had an odd look of curiosity, excitement, and fear in her eyes all at once.  
“What time is it?” Asked Ness groggily, looking around for his alarm clock.  
“Late,” Replied Tracy, not concerned much with his question, “but there was this huge crash outside.”  
“What happened?”  
“I don’t know,” Said Tracy, “but the police are out there now.”  
“Was there an accident? We should go and see-” Ness began, before his sister cut him off.  
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. It might be dangerous, we should probably stay out of it. Besides, I don’t think the police will like two kids running onto the scene very much.”  
“I want to see.” Ness said, unperturbed by other’s words of caution as usual. He began to stand up, straightening out his pajamas that had twisted all around his body as he slept. Tracy muttered protests, none of which Ness could make out clearly, as he was far to set on his goal, and she reluctantly followed him as he ran down the stairs.

Downstairs, Ness’s mother was sitting quietly at the dinner table, wearing those fuzzy pink slippers of hers and a nightgown, tapping her fingernails against a stray coffee mug nervously. She looked at her children and sighed tiredly.  
“You two really ought to be asleep.” She said, lacking any real strength in her voice.  
“Mom, what happened?” Ness asked, Tracy peeking out from behind him. His mother smiled and stood up.  
“I’m not sure honey, but you shouldn’t worry about it.” She ran her hand over his messy dark hair and kissed his forehead. “Try and get some sleep.”  
“But mooooom,” Ness whined, “I want to know what’s going on! I won’t be able to sleep until I do.” He crossed his arms and huffed as if this would be the most convincing argument he would ever make.  
“You don’t need to.” She replied. “Besides, I’m sure we’ll all know by tomorrow morning.”  
Ness opened his mouth to protest and was abruptly interrupted when his face turned to confusion as a loud and consistent pouding came from the front door. His mother sighed.  
“Who on earth is knocking at this time of night?” She turned back to Ness. “Since you’re not going to go to bed anyway, why don’t you get the door?”  
Ness obliged, rolling his eyes at the sound and pattern of the knocking. Judging by the sound, there was only one person it could belong to.

Visible through the crack Ness had opened in the door, there stood a portly short boy not much younger than Ness, his awful blonde bowl cut resting over his forehead, and he peaked at Ness desperately through the horribly maintained hair.  
“Ness!” He cried, inviting himself into the house and pushing the door all the way open.  
“Pokey, what are you doing here?”  
Pokey did not answer the question and instead looked over at Ness’s mother, who was wearing an expression of expectancy, disgust, and yet acceptance.  
“Oh, good evening, ma’am.” His voice was nasally, and he grinned mischievously. “You’re looking awfully nice today.”  
Ness looked at Pokey disapprovingly as he snickered to himself.  
“Anyway, Ness! I need your help!” Pokey begged, turning back to Ness once again. “I was going to see what all the fuss was about with Picky, and he freaked out and ran away, and I can’t find him. You gotta help me find him! You’re my bestest friend in the whole wide world!”  
Ness seriously doubted that, but was enticed by the idea of going outside to see what was going on. He turned around to look at his Mother.  
“Mom, can I go?”  
She looked at the boys for a second, arms crossed, before sighing, losing all resolve to resist.  
“Alright.” She replied. “You’ll just sneak out anyway if I tell you no. Put on your clothes before you leave.”

After Ness threw his clothing on upstairs and called his father, having a quick chat in which his dad told him to call more often, Ness ran downstairs, nearly tripping over untied shoelaces.  
“Hey! Is that my baseball bat?” Tracy cried, deeply offended.  
“I need it! You said it might be dangerous out there! Besides, you never use it anyway.”  
Tracy huffed, but did not protest beyond that. Meanwhile, Pokey was waiting on the sofa, seeming very pleased with himself. Next to him slept an old dog that Ness’s family had adopted long ago, his shaggy white fur lining the cushions. Ness shook King awake and gave him a scratch behind the ears.  
“Well? Are we going?” Pokey asked expectantly, standing up. Ness nodded and led him to the door and whistled, patting his thighs. King sat up and jumped off the sofa lazily, following behind Ness.  
“Bye mom!” he shouted, opening the door.  
“Be safe!” She called back, and with the promise that he would, Ness left his house.

Outside, the police seemed to have evacuated the scene, and there was an ominous danger hanging in the air. Pokey and King followed Ness up the hills, Pokey shouting obnoxious nonsense and Ness trying desperately to ignore him. Cracked up baseball bat held at the ready, he creeped up the grassy hills towards the distant cries of what sounded like a young boy.  
They turned a corner, ‘round a tree that sat there, and something came barreling at Ness in the darkness. Ness yelped and swung the bat desperately in the dark, not sure quite what he was trying to hit, but felt a satisfying impact against the bat regardless. Something squacked and Ness opened his eyes to see that he had hit a black crow, who was lying on the ground now, injured. After a moment it got back up and flew off into the night as if nothing had happened. Breathlessly, Ness drooped his arms and let the bat lie in the grass for a moment. Numbly he brought a hand to his cheek and felt wetness on his fingertips, and he realized that this wetness was his own blood, dripping from a stinging cut that he could only assume the wild crow had created with its beak somewhere in the blind panic.  
“It attacked me.” He said dumbly, still feeling the cut on his face. “Why would it do that?”  
Pokey peered out from behind the tree; Ness just now noticed that he’d been hiding from the crow.  
“Is it gone?” His voice shook and his hands gripped the bark of the tree so tightly that his fingertips were white. Ness blinked, taking a second to breathe.  
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s gone.”  
He reached into his backpack and plastered one of those glow in the dark bandaids Tracy has given him over the cut, and they continued onwards, neither mentioning the event that had just transpired. Still, Ness had never heard of any animals attacking anybody in the Onett suburbs, especially not without being disturbed.  
They reached the top of the hill and Ness’s eyes sparkled when they met one of the most awesome sights he had ever seen; there was a still glowing massive meteorite lodged in the ground, brightly aflame ash floating in the air around it.  
King yipped behind Ness and he turned around to see the old dog running down the hill.  
“Hey! King, come back!” He shouted, considering going after him, but he was already far gone. Ness watched him run back down to their house and scratch at the door, whimpering. Ness sighed.  
“Hey!” Pokey yelled, and Ness turned to see the boy running towards a tree, beneath where a younger boy was crying into his knees.  
“Picky, are you alright?” Ness said, jogging over. Picky looked up and wiped his eyes.  
“You guys came for me! I was up here with Pokey and he got scared and ran away.”  
“That’s not true!” Pokey shouted. “You believe me, don’t you Ness?”  
Ness blinked, choosing not to answer.  
“Let’s just get you home, Picky.”  
Picky stood up and followed the boys, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, when suddenly an odd buzzing echoed in Ness’s ears.  
“Ness, do you hear that?” Pokey said, twisting and turning, searching for the source of the sound, and suddenly a faint spotlight rose into the sky, emitted by the fallen meteorite. Ness approached quietly, wonder glowing in his eyes, and reached out his hand into the light.  
Gently, he felt a weight settle itself on his index finger.  
“A bee I am… not.”


	2. Chapter 2

The crows fluttered as far away from Ness as they possibly could as he bounded towards the unkempt old cabin sitting in a valley between two hills that were littered with UFOs and walking trees. Skidding to a stop by the front, he clambered up the steps clumsily and swung open the door.  
“Ness!” Paula gasped and stood from the spot on the floor she’d been sitting, gripping a stuffed bear in one hand, and reaching to grab one of the rusted bars she was stuck behind with the other. She looked him over and noticed the bruises, his knees covered in bandaids and dried blood, it seemed that he hadn’t bothered to heal himself before rushing over. “You’re hurt!”  
“I’m fine,” Ness dismissed, fumbling around in his short pockets. He smiled and pulled out a rusty old key. “I got it!”   
Paula smiled brightly and pressed her face against the bars.   
“I knew you could! I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you.”  
Ness shook his head as if to tell her not to worry about it and approached the cell, pushing the key into the lock and turning. The cell door gave and creaked open without a lock to hold it back, and Paula leapt out and threw her arms around Ness.  
Surprised by her suddenness, Ness gasped and was still for a moment before blushing and weakly hugging back.  
“Aw, geez…”   
Paula released him and fixed her hairbow pleasantly, and smiled.  
“Well! We should be on our way. I have to say goodbye to my parents though, back in Twoson.” She turned back into the cell and hoisted her backpack onto her pack and grabbed her stuffed bear, clutching it against her chest.  
“Okay!” Ness replied cheerfully. “And then?”  
Paula was already walking towards the door.  
“Then we head to Threed. Come on, I’m sure my family is worried sick.”  
Ness caught up to her and they left the rickety old building together, climbing up the hills back to Twoson.  
“I talked to your mom and dad, they were worried.” Ness said, trying to fill the silence as they walked.  
“Oh?” Paula replied.  
“Yeah, your dad was running all over town looking for you.”  
Paula laughed lightly.  
“That sounds like him.” She kept her eyes set in front of her, not looking over at Ness when he spoke, but still smiling and replying in such a way that Ness was very aware that it wasn’t meant to be rude. Ness had only just met her, but she seemed wonderfully confident, and at the same time very innocent and kind. Her pink dress blew in the wind around her legs as she trotted along.  
Though he didn’t know her well, and was slightly intimidated by her confidence, Ness was awfully glad not to be alone anymore. Having traveled from Onett, to Giant Step, and to Twoson all on his lonesome, it was relieving to have somebody to share his thoughts with. He realized that he and Paula would be traveling together for a while now, and although he wasn’t really very fond of fighting for his life against inanimate objects that had become animated daily, he was glad he would be able to do it alongside such a kind girl, and he found that he was excited to become her friend. At the same time, his stomach fluttered at the thought, and he pushed all resulting thoughts to the very deepest depths of his mind.  
“Ness!”  
Ness snapped out of his daze just in time to duck as a little UFO came whizzing towards his head. The UFO flew over his head and far past them at the speed it was going, but it was clear that it wasn’t finished with the two, and Ness brought his baseball bat to position.  
“I got it!” The UFO turned in the air and came hurdling back towards them, and Ness ran forth to get close enough to hit it. They both came bounding towards each other, Ness leapt into the air, sure of his shot, shut his eyes, and swung the baseball bat in what felt like slow motion and-  
Ness’s bat didn’t make contact with the UFO, who was burning in a pile of charred mechanical parts on the ground. Confused, he turned to Paula, and found her with her eyes dark and her expression intense, fire blooming from the palms of her hands. After realizing the UFO was done for, the flames retreated into her hands and her entire face became bright and joyful again.  
“Alright! Let’s keep going!” She chirped, leaning down to pick up her dropped teddy bear. 

Ness blinked for a moment, shocked, before he took a deep breath in and-  
“WOOOOAAAAH!!!!” Ness threw his hands in the air. “THAT WAS AWESOME!” Paula laughed.  
“You can use PSI too, can’t you?” She asked, trying not to acknowledge the fact that she was at least slightly flattered by Ness’s amazement.  
“Yeah, but not like that!” Ness said, picking his baseball bat back up off the ground. The two began walking once again.  
“Well, you can do plenty of amazing things that I can’t do.” Paula blushed lightly and clutched her bear.  
“You’re cool, Paula.” Ness said without looking at her. Paula looked over at him and was quiet for a moment, tucking a stray tuft of hair behind her ear. Then, without warning, she laughed, eyes tight shut with her hand over her mouth, fingers splayed out so that Ness could see her smile. She snorted in her giggles, and Ness adopted her infectious smile as they crossed the bridge now over Peaceful Rest Valley’s river.   
“You’re cute.”  
Paula trotted along happily, still smiling, and not noticing that behind her Ness had stopped in his tracks, face red and stomach swirling. 

After a moment, he shook his head and smiled, running to catch up with Paula.


	3. Chapter 3

“Ness… I’m hungryyy…” Paula whined, dragging her feet behind Ness reluctantly down the streets of Threed.  
“The map says that there should be a bakery over this way.” Ness replied, squinting at said map. Paula groaned and followed him still, nearly drooping all the way over.  
“Ness,” Paula said, after a moment. Ness did not look up from the map.  
“Yeah?”  
“You’re walking past the bakery.”  
For the first time in a while since they arrived in Threed, Ness looked up and found that they were, in fact, standing in front of a bakery. Looking up now and actually processing the situation, he realized how many issues Threed did have, or at least understood it now. The environment made him feel immediately sad, and he opted to distract himself from it.  
“Okay!” He turned around to look at Paula. “Time to PSI eat.”  
Paula snorted and shook her head despite her exhaustion.  
“You can’t just put PSI in front of every verb like that.”  
“I sure PSI can!”  
Paula laughed again as Ness marched into the bakery and followed behind him.

Seventeen croissants between the two of them later, Paula was just about falling asleep outside the bakery. Ness smiled when she blinked at him sleepily, and then his own exhaustion fell utop him like a sack of bricks, and Paula recommended that they rent out a hotel room, at least for the night. In agreement, she and Ness wandered down the streets in hopes of avoiding monsters to the hotel.  
Behind them, as they approached, Ness heard running footsteps, clumsily echoing on the pavement like the person running was both panicked and wearing much too tall heels for running, and Paula caught him when a woman collided into his shoulder, knocking him off balance, and running past. They watched curiously as she ran up the hotel steps, swung the door open, and practically leapt inside, slamming the door behind her.  
“What is she doing?” Ness said, straightening himself up again. Paula shrugged sleepily and walked on.  
Inside, Ness made for the ATM machine, before Paula nudged him with her elbow, and made a motion towards the desk, where Ness realized the same woman was standing, making glaring, blank eye contact with him. Ness blinked, frozen in the middle of pulling his ATM card from his pocket, and watched as she slowly broke eye contact and sauntered into the next room over, as if daring him to follow.  
Ness slowly put his card back and grabbed Paula’s hand without thinking, and they began walking into the next room over, neither one sure what to think of the woman.  
She stopped by the furthest door and looked at them one last time, not one emotion readable in her face. Then, she opened the door and promptly strutted inside, and shut it behind her firmly. Ness and Paula were unsettled by this, but, in their sleepy state, childlike curiosity got the best of both of them, and they approached the door, neither thinking about how tightly clasped their hands were. Slowly, Ness reached for the door knob, before Paula grabbed for it herself, much more willing to open the door and find what the woman was leading them to, and with a turn the door gave, and swung open to reveal the woman in the black dress standing in the doorway, surrounded by drooping rotted corpses, the zombies that plagued Threed. But she was not a victim of them, and instead Ness and Paula felt a victim of her, and Paula’s first instinct was to shut the door and quickly as she could. She didn’t succeed, the woman grabbed her by the wrist and pried her hand from the door knob, pulling her into the room. Ness rushed in to pry the woman’s slender hand off Paula, a zombie grabbed him from behind, he reached one last time for Paula before a dull pain in his head turned everything to darkness.

—-

Head still aching, Ness pounded on the filthy locked door that kept him and Paula prisoner.  
“HEY! HEY! ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?”  
“Ness, they’re not going to let us out.” Paula said, defeat in her voice. Ness banged on the door one last time before shoving his hands in his pockets and sniffling.  
“What are we gonna do?” Ness reached to wipe away tears before they could touch his cheeks, turning to Paula, who was sitting with her back against the wall. She sighed, fiddling with her dress.   
“I’m going to try and call out. I’m low on energy, but I’m going to try.” She said, not looking up.  
“Call out to who?” Ness asked, sitting down next to her. Paula pressed her index finger to his lips and hushed him, and Ness placed his hands in his lap silently.   
Paula took in a deep breath and let it out through her mouth, repeating this over and over. After a moment, Ness began hearing the message she was sending. Not audibly, of course, and he figured that perhaps anyone tuned in in the vicinity would be able to hear it.  
“Jeff… I am a friend you have never met. Jeff! We need your help! I am Paula and I am with another friend, Ness…”

Jeff sat up in his bed, chest heaving. 

After a moment, he fumbled around frantically in the dark, searching for his glasses. He turned on the bedside lamp and cleaned his glasses off on his pajama shirt before putting them on and throwing off his blankets, and Tony stirred in the bed across from him.  
“Jeff? What’s going on?” He slurred, rubbing his eyes in the sudden light. Jeff, meanwhile, was frantically trying to get dressed.  
“Jeff? Jeff, come on, what are you doing?” Tony sat up in his bed, squinting.  
“Tony, I-I-I… I have to go.” Jeff sputtered, hurriedly trying to tie his bow tie. Sleepily, Tony got out of bed and grabbed at the bow tie out of habit, and nonchalantly tied it around Jeff’s collar for him.  
“Thank you.” Jeff said.  
“Where are you going? You’re not leaving campus, are you? You’ll get in trouble.” Tony said, rather tired and confused.  
“I just- I can’t- I don’t- someone needs my help, Tony, I need to go-“   
“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.” Tony said, smiling. “I trust you.”  
Jeff blinked and released a breath of relief before smiling.  
“Thank you, Tony. You always understand.”  
“Come on, I'll help you over the gate.”

After tiptoeing down the dark hallways of the boy’s dorm, the two made their way downstairs, silent and sneaky as two thirteen year old boys could be.   
“Okay,” Tony whispered, “there are things in the lockers over here that might-“  
The lights flickered on, and Jeff and Tony froze in their tracks.   
“What are you two up to?”  
Beside the light switch, an older student leaning against the wall smirked, arms crossed.  
“Maxwell!” Jeff whispered harshly.  
“Maxwell, Jeff has to leave. You can’t tell anybody about this.” Tony said, stepping forward with confidence that might even convince someone that Maxwell wasn’t much taller and much older than him. Maxwell Labs stepped up to Jeff, looking him up and down for a moment, leaving Jeff to look up at him nervously. Then, Maxwell laughed and reached out to ruffle Jeff’s hair.  
“Alright, I’ll help you out.” Jeff breathed out a sigh of relief as Maxwell reached into his pocket. “This should open the lockers over there.”  
Maxwell handed Jeff a small cube shaped machine, only one button on it.  
“Thank you, Maxwell.” Jeff said, placing the machine in his pocket.  
“No worries,” Maxwell replied, walking back down the hallway. “My lips are sealed.”

Outside, after having retrieved the contents of the lockers, Jeff and Tony stood in front of the door to the gate that surrounded their boarding school. Jeff looked up nervously, hardly remembering a time that he lived outside the gate. Then, he sighed and turned to Tony.  
“Happy Birthday,” he said, folding his hands together awkwardly. “I left your present at where I always leave it.”  
Without warning, Tony swiftly pulled Jeff into a tight hug, and Jeff gasped.  
“Be safe, Jeff.”  
Jeff’s breath got caught in his throat.  
“I will be.”  
They lingered in the hug for a moment, before Tony pulled away. Not sure exactly what to do, or how boys usually behaved with their friends, Jeff awkwardly clapped Tony on the shoulder.  
“Goodbye, Tony.”  
Tony smiled and knelt down, and Jeff climbed up on his back. Lifted over the gate door and clinging to the top, about ready to drop onto the other side, Jeff looked down at Tony one last time.  
“Bye, Jeff.”  
Jeff waved and dropped himself on the other side of the gate, and watched as Tony reluctantly retreated back into the school building.

—-

Jeff’s fists were tightly enough clenched that his knuckles were somehow becoming whiter than his already incredibly pale complexion, and he paced back and forth for a moment in the snow, gathering his determination in front of the door to Dr. Andonut’s lab on the other side of Winters. He took in a deep breath and reached out to knock, then decided against it and went back to pacing, and repeated this process at least five more times before he finally gathered the courage to knock on the door. Gathering his composure, he rapped on the door twice and folded his hands behind his back. The doorknob turned and Jeff’s stomach turned to mush.  
“Oh, hello, you must be from Snow Wood.”  
Mouth dry, Jeff nodded, feeling awfully small.  
“What's your name, boy?”  
Jeff’s stomach dropped, and he adjusted his glasses nervously.  
“I’m- I’m Jeff Andonuts.”

Dr. Andonut’s face registered a whole gamut of emotions before he replied.   
“Why, it’s you, Jeff. It’s been… you were so small the last time I saw you. What are you doing here?”   
“I need- I need your help to get somewhere- these people need me to come find them.”  
Dr. Andonuts paused for a moment, stroking his mustache, before nodding and motioning for Jeff to follow him inside, his lab coat flowing behind him.  
Jeff followed him inside the lab, wringing his hands. He’d be lying if he said that he didn’t find it wondrous and impressive inside the sleek lab, but was unsettled by it regardless. There was a jealousy and anger that he didn’t understand burning in his stomach as his long lost father led him past a collection of shiny machines. At the end of them sat a round UFO shaped machine, and Dr. Andonuts stopped in front of it.  
“This is the Sky Runner,” he said, motioning towards it, “it’ll take you where you need to go.”  
Jeff looked at it for a moment before nodding, shoving his hands in his pockets.  
“Okay.” He said. “Thank you.”  
Dr. Andonuts nodded and turned away dismissively.  
“Well, it’s been nice seeing you again, son.”  
Jeff looked at him for a moment, awkwardly.  
“Uh… yeah.”  
“Let’s meet again in another ten years, why don’t we?” Dr. Andonuts said into his coffee mug. Jeff nodded stiffly after a second and marched towards the door of the Sky Runner, prying it open. Inside, hand on the door, he peeked out at his father.  
“Well… goodbye.”  
Dr. Andonuts waved, and Jeff figured this was all he was going to get. He shut the door and started up the fairly self explanatory machine.

When it began to rise above the lab, Jeff felt the relief of having escaped his father, which was quickly followed by anger and sadness and he clutched his seat until his knuckles were white, willing his tears back into his eyes.

—-

Jeff found himself coughing and sputtering on the ground, surrounded by smoke and the smell of burning. With fright he noticed a small flame at the tip of his hair and frantically put it out, breathing heavily, and then adjusted dirty glasses, unaware that a boy and a girl about his age were watching him panic in a mess of a broken machine. After he became relatively calm, he noticed the two and yelped.  
“Hi!” Said Paula, waving enthusiastically. “I’m Paula.”  
“I’m Ness! You must be Jeff!”  
Jeff looked at them for a moment before stepping over the flames and uniformly offering his hand.  
“Y-yes, that’s me. I came because you called me. I’m… I’m really near sighted, and kind of reckless, and kind of shy, and… I hope you want to be my friend.”  
Ness and Paula looked at him for a second, neither one accepting his handshake. Jeff swallowed nervously and adjusted his glasses, before Ness and Paula both pounced on him in a dog pile styled show of affection. After recovering from his shock, Jeff laughed, nervous, but happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I DON'T like Dr. Andonuts. I do not! Anywho, I really liked writing this chapter, Jeff is one of my favorites.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I am painfully aware that my writing style doesn’t fit the tone of Earthbound too well. Hopefully this will still be enjoyable.


End file.
